1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pitch data output apparatus for outputting pitch data on the basis of a relative movement operation of a pair of movable members and an electronic musical instrument using the same and, more particularly, to a pitch data output apparatus for outputting pitch data corresponding to a pipe position on the basis of a slide operation of a pipe like in a trombone and an electronic musical instrument for generating a musical tone or sound of a pitch corresponding to the pitch data output from the pitch data output apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wind type instruments include piston type wind instruments such as saxophones, clarinets, and the like each of which designates a pitch by changing a pipe length in such a manner that a plurality of pipe side holes formed on an instrument body are opened/closed with fingers, and slide type wind instruments such as trombones each of which designates a pitch by sliding a movable pipe to change a pipe length.
An electronic wind instrument which constitutes a conventional acoustic wind instrument by electronic circuits is known.
For example, a piston type electronic wind instrument is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,767,833. The electronic wind instrument has pitch designation switches for designating pitches. When an operator blows a breath into a mouthpiece while he or she operates the pitch designation switches to designate a pitch, a musical tone of the pitch designated upon operation of the pitch designation switches is produced. When the operator makes a lip operation, i.e., bites the mouthpiece during generation of the predetermined musical tone, the designated pitch is changed.
On the other hand, a slide type electronic wind instrument such as a trombone is disclosed in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,456,062. The electronic wind instrument disclosed in this reference comprises a body, and a movable U-shaped pipe which is slidable along the outer surface of a cylindrical pipe provided to the body. When the U-shaped pipe is slid to increase/decrease the entire pipe length, a pitch can be continuously changed.
In this manner, the slide type electronic wind instrument can continuously change a pitch. For this reason, the slide type electronic wind instrument has a feature of allowing a glissando performance of making a scale stepwise in units of half notes and a portamento performance of continuously changing a pitch, which cannot be realized by the piston type electronic wind instrument which can only designate discontinuous pitches.
The electronic wind instrument disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,456,062 continuously changes a pitch of a musical tone to be generated in accordance with a change in inductance of a magnetic circuit formed between an induction coil provided to the body and a core rod provided to the U-shaped pipe. For this reason, this instrument tends to be influenced by an external inductive hum or the like. Thus, a slide position cannot be accurately detected, and a structure is relatively complicated. In this instrument, since the entire electronic circuit comprises an analog circuit, an operator cannot enjoy a variety of pitch changes. Furthermore, this instrument cannot change a pitch based on a pipe length of the wind instrument in accordance with different characteristics.